EA Exec Says Its Games Are "Too Hard to Learn" For New Players

[JLF]

This statement would suggest that the EA execs main expertise is completely in economics and general business management, not game development. This is something a lot of developers, game reviewers and gaming enthusiast have pointed out time and time again that a good game needs a engaging tutorial/learning process. In this article content it sounds like the Execs want easier and less involved games (e.g. pacman style games, with only two ghosts) which sounds sad and depressing. This will not be good for the company's sales figures.

A new Dragon Age game with better graphics but with linear story progression and the gameplay consisting of quicktime events. Something like Azuras wrath just a bit easier??

 

[Kameburger]

Which is already true I suppose, but he's right about RPG elements. Leveling up and what not, experience, these sort of concepts that make game progression easy to quantify are not going to disappear, and we're going to see more and more of them from now on.

I blame Borderlands, which is one of the only FPS I play because of its story and RPG elements.

Could be, Deus Ex and System Shock were only really cult classics. Bioshock might also be a good candidate as well.
Either way, I don't know if I can say it's a bad thing. Unless you hate doing the same things over and over again.

 

[pacmonster]

The tough thing about what the EA exec said is in understanding what he meant by saying that. The concern that it raises in the hardcore gamer crowd is that when he says things like "our games are too hard" he is really saying, "we need to dumb down the gameplay to make it easier for everybody regardless of skill" and it's that kind of talk that leads to a game like Destiny. Completely devoid of any sort of depth that would define a "good" game but 7-9 year old kids can dominate in it.

It's vary possible he actually just meant his games do a poor job of teaching players what to do as they play. I haven't particularly heard this as a complaint for EA games but sure, I suppose there's always room for improvement when it comes to tutorials and how best to teach players what to do. As others have said, the best games teach players what to do organically throughout the whole game, not all at once in a forced tutorial section at the start.

He also mentioned integrating more social elements. Again, it raises concerns. If that kind of integration can be made without compromising other parts of the game, great, all for it. But so far it seems like these kind of features never work out as well as advertised and usually just end up being ways to slyly add DRM to a game.

 

[FogHornG36]

Maybe, but then again i spent 2 hours to take a Familiarization Course for an arma MilSim community. Its kinda an investment of time on how complex a game is going to be, some people can do it, and some people want to jump into a game right away, and play for a half hour between work, school, or family.

 

[Zendariel]

And Michael de Plater's assertion is ludicrous. Racing games, beat'em ups, shoot'em ups, arcade fighters, puzzle games, platformers, none of these are known to frequently or consistantly impliment RPG elements as he has described them.

I kind of have to disagree with you on this one, with the exception of arcade fighters. More and more games do use progression based on accumulating XP or equivalent, often currency.

For example:
-in racing games to buy better cars, better engines and chassis etc. Essentially working identically to experience and character upgrades.
-beat em up's seem to be getting more and more rpg elements, unlocking new moves, upgrading health.
-Shoot em up's you buy better weapons, more armor. Granted there are a lot of shoot em up's where the skill set is set for each character/ship or you collect items from levels. but there seem to be just as many where you buy some sort of upgrades.
-Many puzzle games unlock abilities that make the game easier and these are often somewhat related to an experience meter of some sort.
-Platformers are one genre that does this a lot less unless they mix action elements like for example guns or sword skills.

His comment was pretty vague though and it can be interpreted in many ways and he might not have thought it this far. Now whether or not this is good depends on the game and i certainly miss the games that have kind of a set challenge and you have to use the abilities you're given to solve them, without having the option to grind better gear etc to diminish the said designed challenge.

Edit:Reread the original argument and yeah, saying you would never do a game anymore without these attributes is ludicrous. They are used a lot but there are great games that do not use experience or equivalent as a method to progress your character, car etc.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

"The average player probably spends two hours to learn how to play the most basic game."

Says a lot about your target audience, EA.

Says a lot about their tutorial design, doesn't it?

Says a lot about the level of competence required to reach EA's executive positions, doesn't it?


Ugh.


I'm not sure what people he's even talking about, unless they're someone who's completely new to the concept of gaming and, if that's the case, they're likely either very old or very young. In both cases, MANY 'baby's first' versions of almost every genre exist and, frankly, EA's offerings could be thrown into that category if we're just going off of complexity alone.

And as for the rest of this (what I suppose I have to charitably call an) idiot's...commentary-

To quote an angry person, "There is no middle finger big enough!"

 

[StatusNil]

Gamers are dead and over, though. They are clearly not EA's audience. The new Strategic Vision calls for a brave new barely interactive Artform. Imagine something like "motion picture" (for lack of a better term), interrupted by occasional prompts to "Press X to Proceed". Everyone will want to play those, because they will be spammed by "Your Friend Grandma Millie just unlocked the 'Purchased 200 Credits' Achievement!" on MugBinder. The Program is rock solid. The Program is sound!

I mean, why would you do anything else with your precious time?

 

[fix-the-spade]

Who the hell takes two hours to learn how to play a game?

I'd say that a Battlefield game takes at least 50 hours to learn properly, which is down from the days of Battlefield 2, which took about 200 hours to really get it and not die horribly at random (and many hundreds more if you wanted to get into helicopters and jets).

That's how it should be too, so what if you can learn to run and shoot in twenty minutes, games need some depth to keep the player going, otherwise everything will turn into Call of... oh.

This is code for EA being about to cram free to play mechanics into everything, replacing skills to learn (what's the difference between an AN94 and a Famas?) with arbitrary XP (can't hit anything? Buy the Assault rifle XP bonus pack to reduce recoil and spread!) and paring every game they release down to the bone.

I'd like to be wrong, but I think everything's about to go a bit Dungeon Keeper.

 

[MiriaJiyuu]

2 hour tutorials are common? The only game that comes to mind for a 2 hour opening is KH2 and it was blasted for having such an atrociously long opening.

I'm not sure if they actually said 'two-hour tutorials', the article did but EA said "asking for two hours of somebody's time--most of our customers, between their normal family lives...to find two contiguous hours to concentrate on learning how to play a video game is a big ask". I don't see them specifying a flat-out tutorial.
(The rest is addressed to everyone, not just you)

I mean the average base controls tutorial is usually maybe 10 mins at most but realistically you spend much longer than that learning how to play a game, even if it's subconscious. Passed that tutorial you slowly learn when to use what weapon/move, what to look out for from AIs, how to efficiently beat most enemies etc etc, on top (and before) all of this is familiarizing yourself with the controls, and maybe the controller itself as EA specifically says NEW players. To anyone on this site with a game controller if the screen says 'Press X' our thumb just presses it, to a person who has never played a game before this means:
-confusion
-looking down at the controller
-finding X
-pressing it
-looking back at the screen
-trying to figure out what just happened and still slightly confused
A lot longer process and one I've watched people repeat many times when trying to learn a game.

Also, as someone else said, there's completing the tutorial, and playing a game proficiently. The latter is what takes two-hours potentially (sometimes longer depending on pacing). There really is a lot to learn in every game and if you are a NEW player, I.E. NO ONE ON THIS SITE (which, btw, a lot of you in this thread are really condescending and I feel sorry for people around you who want to share in your hobbies since that would clearly be a massive effort), you have no prior knowledge of how any of these games work and, as I stated before, the process of learning the game is significantly longer.

In retrospect, I wish a lot of you would really think about how much harder your hobby is to someone who isn't a part of it instead of being elitist about it. Have some patience and understanding with people for once in your lives, that controller is goddamn terrifying and PC controls even more so.

Although.... EA? Please retain your social networking stuff as optional, I'd rather not share everything I do.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Publishers need to stop assuming that they know what the public wants, because they don't. It's a sign of incredible arrogance.

That sort of thinking only leads to more self-fulfilling prophecies when they end up making the same "easy to learn" games over and over while fending off alternatives, ultimately confirming their own predictions.

Until someone comes along who breaks the mold and makes a financially valid alternative. Then they start copying that again and the cycle continues.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

It's kind of funny how they say that games take too long to learn and then they go on to say they are going to add basically more junk for the payers to learn. Not every game needs RPG elements and you can save tutorial time by just not including them. Same with social features. Stop injecting random extras in your games and you bet they won't take as long to learn.

 

[milijanko]

If you listen to commentaries in Valve games they talk almost through the entire game about gradually teaching players new gameplay mechanics. And their games are better than anything EA has ever published.

So Mr. Hilleman, if it wasn't obvious up until now, you and your colleagues suck and making games.

 

[Zendariel]

2 hour tutorials are common? The only game that comes to mind for a 2 hour opening is KH2 and it was blasted for having such an atrociously long opening.

I'm not sure if they actually said 'two-hour tutorials', the article did but EA said "asking for two hours of somebody's time--most of our customers, between their normal family lives...to find two contiguous hours to concentrate on learning how to play a video game is a big ask". I don't see them specifying a flat-out tutorial.
(The rest is addressed to everyone, not just you)

I mean the average base controls tutorial is usually maybe 10 mins at most but realistically you spend much longer than that learning how to play a game, even if it's subconscious. Passed that tutorial you slowly learn when to use what weapon/move, what to look out for from AIs, how to efficiently beat most enemies etc etc, on top (and before) all of this is familiarizing yourself with the controls, and maybe the controller itself as EA specifically says NEW players. To anyone on this site with a game controller if the screen says 'Press X' our thumb just presses it, to a person who has never played a game before this means:
-confusion
-looking down at the controller
-finding X
-pressing it
-looking back at the screen
-trying to figure out what just happened and still slightly confused
A lot longer process and one I've watched people repeat many times when trying to learn a game.

Also, as someone else said, there's completing the tutorial, and playing a game proficiently. The latter is what takes two-hours potentially (sometimes longer depending on pacing). There really is a lot to learn in every game and if you are a NEW player, I.E. NO ONE ON THIS SITE (which, btw, a lot of you in this thread are really condescending and I feel sorry for people around you who want to share in your hobbies since that would clearly be a massive effort), you have no prior knowledge of how any of these games work and, as I stated before, the process of learning the game is significantly longer.

In retrospect, I wish a lot of you would really think about how much harder your hobby is to someone who isn't a part of it instead of being elitist about it. Have some patience and understanding with people for once in your lives, that controller is goddamn terrifying and PC controls even more so.

Although.... EA? Please retain your social networking stuff as optional, I'd rather not share everything I do.

Very much this, it can get even worse if the new player tries different consoles as each has a different layout for face buttons. I sometimes run into a kind of specific issue as I don't have a xbox360 controller on my computer, instead I use a playstation controller with 360 controller emulation. And when someone not accustomed to the layout of 360 controller tries to play with it they get really confused as the layout of the actual controller is completely different from game prompts.

I still adore core nintendo games (mainly mario games) for having pretty simple controls as I think they are great games for beginners. They get difficult, but the difficulty does not come so much from trying to find the right button to press. but that is only possible if you limit actions your character can take as to reduce buttons the player has to remember and learn.

I don't really know how you would teach buttons effectively for new players. Maybe you could display the whole controller with the button press needed highlighted, usually you only get the button prompt which like you said takes time to find for new players. Though if you want to make a game for the "core" audience, these should be optional as players who are familiar with the genre the game happens to be, really don't want to go through the same motions in every game.

 

[blackrave]

I know it indicates nothing, but still
How many games Richard Hilleman has finished in his life?
And what games in particular?
Just curious.

 

[BoogieManFL]

Oh yeah? Where is the data to back that up? I'd wager it's more likely that "execs" don't know jack shit about gamers if that is what they think, and if they also think every game needs to have a social element.

Fuck right the fuck off, you fucking fucks.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I didn't realise that EA's new target demographic are syphilitic lepers.

I mean, how long does it take to learn that Dungeon Keeper Mobile is a giant scam?

 

[major_chaos]

Man, so much condescension in this thread. Let me ask you, when was the last time you were a new player, or tried to teach a new player? Like any knowledge, video game mechanics mastery is an accumulated skill. Once you've learned the basics in one game, that knowledge benefits you in similarly designed games. The details may be different, but the basics usually aren't(unless they were designed by Derek Smart). But new players don't have that advantage, and so yes, learning takes longer even with a well designed title. Granted, EA's games aren't anything special in that regard, but yeah, new players take longer to learn a game. This shouldn't be a controversial idea.

*dingdingding* We have a winner.
I just knew as soon as I saw the title that this would be full of people who have been gaming since the NES/SNES era going "god what kind of moron can't learn a game in five seconds like me?" just like PC threads are full of "a-duh what kind of retard cant build a PC? I built 37 of them and long since forgot what my first build was like so clearly I know what I'm talking about."

Tell you guys what, hand you dad/sibling/wife/whatever who has never played a game more complex than Angry Birds a controller and game and tell them to figure it out, see how long it takes. When my dad tried to play Smash Brothers Brawl (AKA Casual: The Game) with my younger sister (who is a gamer) it took a longass time for him to get beyond "up is jump and A punches people".

The entire gaming community sometimes needs to take a step back and remember that not everyone is a enlightened techno-Ubermensch like you. But they won't, because lets face it, looking at things from other perspectives is much harder than ranting and raging and mockery.

 

[Bad Jim]

Man, so much condescension in this thread. Let me ask you, when was the last time you were a new player, or tried to teach a new player? Like any knowledge, video game mechanics mastery is an accumulated skill. Once you've learned the basics in one game, that knowledge benefits you in similarly designed games. The details may be different, but the basics usually aren't(unless they were designed by Derek Smart). But new players don't have that advantage, and so yes, learning takes longer even with a well designed title. Granted, EA's games aren't anything special in that regard, but yeah, new players take longer to learn a game. This shouldn't be a controversial idea.

And on that note, let me leave you with an example of someone flailing about in "Tutorial: the Game," also known as Portal.

That's a bad example. iJustine plays loads of games and she got stuck even longer. And we are talking about a few outliers here. If a significant number of playtesters failed to solve it Valve would have added extra hints.

Also, that is an actual puzzle, not someone failing to understand the controls.

 

[AT God]

I think this actually might have some merit. I think as people who play games, we are really unqualified to make the call on whether or not games are too hard, because games have a certain logic that you either understand or you don't. Despite the advances in game design, lots of games still have some very stringent rules that don't automatically make sense. One of the things that I recently started to enjoy was the Clueless Gamer segment from Conan, it was interesting to watch him try and play a brand new, AAA game without having the previous knowledge base that is expected by games like GTAV.

One thing I have thought about a lot recently is I would really like to get my mother to play Spec Ops: The Line. She still holds the old-fashioned sort of belief that games are without value artistically and are just about killing time. I feel that Spec Ops, if I could get her to play through it, would be enlightening because it really starts out by reinforcing that belief, you basically do the basic violent war games stuff and then it dramatically shifts in tone. However, the more I experiment with the game as if I have never played anything before, I realize that I don't think it would work. Even on the easiest difficulty, there are numerous moments that require fairly quick reactions and lots of complicated inputs and I doubt it would be effective. I think it might still be effective if I do the playing and let her make the decisions, and possibly control during the various notable moments, since they are much less complicated.

As far as stupid things EA Execs say, I don't think this counts. That said, one of the last games I played by EA, Battlefield 3, is definitely too hard for beginners to learn. That singleplayer campaign is full of instant death QTE's and extremely scripted "run away from the danger and don't stop or die" moments.

 

[NPC009]

I understand all to well modern controllers can be intimidating. My parents both enjoyed games back in the late eighties, now the Wiimote (no attachments!) is the only controller that doesn't scare them away from videogames. We get the kids started on DS titles and PC games with very simple controls. They get frustrated when they can't find the right buttons on time. 'Press X' is only easy if you know where 'X' is without looking.

However, I don't think it's a bad thing for games to need more buttons. Some just need a control scheme that isn't just 'press X for everything'. If you want to develop games for people who aren't familair with them, don't rebuild existing games, build ones with those users in mind.

And yeah, if you just throw everything at a player right away, you've probably designed it wrong. Let players gain confidence with the basics, then go from there.